


The Only Thing I Want To Be (is Yours)

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: sub Cecil [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: D/s, DomCarlos, M/M, No Tentacles, human Cecil, subCecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:19:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll be up front about this, the only plot here is Carlos learning to Dom for Cecil. No major weird stuff (background weird stuff, sure, but it's... you know, it's not plot-relevant weirdness), no dangers, no other characters really interfering in things... It is not PWP by any means, but the plot does revolve around the personal dynamic, sexual as well as otherwise, that they develop here.</p><p>Starts off quite slow with a tiny little chapter that introduced Carlos to the idea of kink in general.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Carlos

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place some time prior to 'The Conference', but is in the same continuity.

"Carlos..." Cecil sighs, and the sound of the name contains star systems. A galaxy in two syllables. It feels light leaving his lips, and he feels light for saying it, but on Carlos, it weighs heavy.

It feels heavy. Heavier than his name should feel, significant somehow in ways he can't describe. 

They're kissing. On Cecil's couch. These are concrete things he can cling to, in the face of his own name sounding so deep and so vital and so full of so much. And Cecil loves petting at his hair, and being petted at, Cecil moans and sighs at what seem to be the smallest touches, and he should have known Cecil would be vocal, but he hadn't anticipated just how much so. 

"Cecil." Carlos says, because it seems he should. He cannot make it sound as important as Cecil has made his name sound. 

"Do you-- um...?" Cecil smiles, and bites his lip, and is so charmingly unsubtle in the way his eyes flicker between their bodies, to the door of his bedroom, and it's not the first time, but he seems somehow reduced to raw youth by a few enthusiastic couch-bound kisses, shy and excited at the thought of going further. 

"Yeah. Sure." Carlos nods, his hand hooked around Cecil's knee-- something he's learned keeps Cecil all but constantly squirming. "That sounds good. Great, even."

Cecil leads him back, hesitating every couple of steps.

"Cecil?" Carlos says, gently. "You know, if you don't really feel like it, we can just kiss on the couch some more... I don't expect things just because we've gone farther before."

"No, I do-- I just... Could I ask for something? Something a little different, I mean."

Carlos shrugs. "Sure."

"I-- I've never... I've never asked anyone for this, before... I've never been comfortable asking. But... Well, you know how I feel about you, and... If I can't ask you, then who can I ask, right? I always used to think, well, maybe this isn't the time, and maybe this isn't the guy, but if it never feels right then I'll move on, and when I meet The One, I'll know, and... I don't know if there's any validity to that line of thinking, Carlos, but... Now I'm with you, and you're... I just want to get this out now, and you don't have to say yes to anything, but you should know what I-- You should know."

This sounds heavy, as well, as heavy as Cecil's 'Carlos' had been, too heavy to be anything Carlos had expected. 'Can I fuck you' or 'can you fuck me' or even something a little weirder, maybe, but Cecil's prologue has its own gravity and whatever the question is, it will not be something light.

"Just ask me." He says. However heavy it is, it can't beat the silence that stretches on between. 

"I'm kind of... into stuff." Cecil admits-- if it can be called an admission. He sighs and one hand flaps around as if to physically clear the air where his words had been. "Kinky stuff. I'm kind of kinky."

Carlos feels a cold ball of dread form in the pit of his stomach at the thought of what Night Vale's idea of kinky might be. He'd been embarrassingly relieved to find that Cecil was entirely human once undressed, and he's not sure if he can handle whatever is coming, but Cecil had said, he didn't have to say yes. He just had to listen.

"Well, that's... okay. I can't promise I'm into the stuff you're into, but... that's okay. That doesn't mean I definitely won't be into any of it, I just... I might need time for this, okay?"

They sit on the bed, and Cecil plucks absently at the fluff of his blanket. It is... hideous, really. Lime green fur frosted white at the tips, something that might have been marketed to a thirteen year old girl, and yet against the dark purple sheets, it doesn't exactly clash, even though Carlos feels maybe it should.

"Okay." Cecil nods. "I just... I want to share this with you. Because you're you, and, well, my boyfriend. And because... it's really hard to do all this stuff for myself. If it was a sex thing I guess it would be okay, but it's not just that. It... I need you for this."

"Okay... Well. Clue me in here, Cecil."

Cecil brings a box out from under the bed. It's white, and looks like something you'd get a nice bathrobe giftwrapped in at a department store, in terms of the glossiness of the cardboard and the size of the thing. 

He expects non-Euclidean sex toys, which he does not even know how to envision, but instead there are... Well, there is one pair of leather cuffs, which is kinky, but not in a truly frightening and uniquely Night Vale way. Beyond that, though, there are just... folders.

"Okay, I think I know what to do with these..." He picks the cuffs up, realizing as he says it that no, he really doesn't, not really. He assumes. He assumes that because Cecil owns them, he wants to be in them, maybe he cuffs one wrist to his own bedpost on occasion when masturbating, but he could be very wrong, and perhaps they've just been sitting in the box waiting for someone to come along willing to wear them. "But, um... what's in the folders?"

"Ideas." Cecil picks up the purple folder, then the blue one, then the green. "Things I'd like. Negotiation forms. Factual information. It's all... kind of just on paper right now."

"May I?"

Cecil nods. Carlos starts with the purple folder. There are pages printed from a computer, and torn from magazines or photocopied from books-- not pornographic, even, though a couple of images from ads seem to border on the pornographic, and certainly some of the things he'd pulled from the internet were geared towards sex. 

There are images of men in corsets and stockings, and in precisely fitted suits. There are bits of text that Carlos' eyes swim over, things he promises he will read later. There is, disturbingly, a woodblock print of a man being crushed beneath weighty stones, and Carlos flips past that quickly. He will look at the rest of the page later for clarification, but he is not ready to let that thought occupy the same space as sex in his mind. A variety of things seem to be covered, or at least alluded to, with neatly painted footnotes on some of the pages, done with an insanely precise little brush dipped in colorful ink.

And he needs time to come to grips with all of this, but he does not need time to come to grips with Cecil, who is sweet, and normally very patient, and who speaks his name with a weight that might just be reverence. 

"Can I borrow this? I really should read it, um... Carefully, sometime, when I can--"

Cecil nods. 

"Tonight, can we just... be?"

He's worried that there is nothing right in how he's said that, but Cecil laughs and nods again and wraps his arms around Carlos. 

"That sounds nice." He says, pulling away only to put the other folders back in place, to clear the box from his bed. 

And then, Cecil is in Carlos' arms, and things feel as normal as they ever have.


	2. The Comforts of Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there is one thing Carlos has always been good at, it's research... This is just a little different from what he's used to.

Cecil sends the first folder home with him, and Carlos can't stop seeing his face, in the moment the loan had been granted, the moment Cecil had closed Carlos' hands more firmly around it and nodded. The way he'd looked torn and terrified, the way his mouth had hung open and trembled just slightly at the prospect of giving this part of himself away-- giving the folder up for a night or two, but giving the knowledge up completely.

Carlos supposed you didn't give knowledge away, but you could certainly share it, and the prospect of sharing this much this fully had definitely given Cecil pause, even though he'd been emphatic. 

Cecil could hide on the radio, could twist his words when he had to, could say things he didn't believe when it meant keeping his job, or the integrity of his own mind, or even his life-- Carlos didn't know every consequence and did not want to, but he knew Cecil skirted things sometimes, and other times he toed the line. His eyes, though... Carlos thinks he could never lie with those. They are too wide, too strangely innocent for a man of Cecil's years and experience, for a man who has seen the things that Carlos knows Cecil has seen. He's never met anyone with eyes quite so guileless. 

In the emotional safety of his own apartment, Carlos looks over everything, reads over everything, putting the most stock in Cecil's hand-painted notes, letting those guide him through the rest. He learns that there are scenarios that Cecil finds intriguing, but has no interest in participating in-- there are photocopied pages from what he gathers are old favorite stories, and Cecil's attempts at putting those into some place in his sexual development, and Carlos learns to find comfort in Cecil's notes particularly, because they pull him away from the things that had first frightened him. 

The pages with woodblock prints to illustrate-- the one with the man being crushed beneath stones, and another of a man being yanked up out of a veritable hell-- those had been offputting without Cecil's notes. 

The first merely says some things about weight, not mentioning crushing as an erotic aspect-- not mentioning eroticism at all, merely the comfort inherent in the idea of being underneath another person, and why did things have to get weird when such thoughts were verbalized. The page was frayed, the notes in regular ink from a ballpoint pen, clearly pre-ban, and he wonders how long it had been a part of Cecil's folder, wonders if there had been another boyfriend once who called it weird, when Cecil attempted to verbalize this sense of comfort. 

Is it weird? Carlos doesn't even think he knows anymore, but compared to so many things, it is at least harmless. It is kind of nice, to imagine that Cecil might be comforted by his physical presence, however that comfort came, and Cecil was not a bad pillow, really... And if Cecil liked being underneath him, then that is something he decides he could handle.

The second page has him nervous even as he recognizes the source-- an illustration from the last page of 'The Pit and the Pendulum', but Cecil's notes...

Carlos isn't sure whether he wants to smile or not, or whether he wants to go and find Cecil and hold him.

'No one else really seemed to understand this story like I did' Cecil's handwriting-- handpainting?-- loops across the page, lurid purple this time. 'I remember when we read this for class. There was a discussion on whether or not it was a sound strategy for dealing with dissidents and lawbreakers, and I'm sure most people liked it, even, but no one got into it. We all understood the agony, as much as anyone can at that age, but for everyone else, the torture stopped when you stopped reading, and you could close the book in the middle if you wanted to and it would stop, except for me it only stopped at the end, when they pulled him up out of the shrinking pit, and I remember I felt such a relief when they did and I didn't know if that was okay, because I was also sure you weren't supposed to side with the dissidents and the lawbreakers, but my hands were shaking and I felt like crying, and I don't want to be tortured but I want that feeling of relief you get when you get pulled out of the pit at the end and I don't know where you find that feeling.'

Carlos doesn't know, himself. It seems like that kind of a feeling is beyond his power to give, he isn't exactly a poet... But maybe part of this thing was weaving a work of fiction into everyday life. 

Beneath pictures of ramrod-spined butlers and June Cleaver-styled housewives, there are more notes, among them the plaintive 'I just want to take care of someone' and a rather more vicious 'How am I being oppressed if this is what I want, anyway? I think I need to break up with him', that speaks very clearly of an ex-boyfriend who would not have been ready for Cecil's admissions of kinkiness.

Carlos feels a rather unexpected stab of something almost like victory, at the idea that he is ready for this admission and past boyfriends were not-- that he was trusted with it where they were not, and is handling it better than they would have. That he is THE boyfriend now, and that no one else is. He isn't sure how to feel about feeling this, but he decides that part isn't important.

It is important that Cecil has marked this picture of a man in a corset with a 'maybe' and an 'interesting'. It is important that Cecil has taken that photocopied page about the experiences of a slave on the auction block and covered the back in a frantic and guilt-ridden scrawl about the question of whether it is wrong to want that, when one has the generally-preferable option of not being or feeling like chattel. It is important, all the echoes Carlos can find of the same basic sentiments across all these pages. Cecil's need to feel chosen, to feel wanted. To feel good enough. And most of all, to please. 

There are things Carlos is bad at. Horrible at, even. He never could get the hang of conveying emotion properly, but he can read it. When it is laid out the way Cecil can't seem to help but lay everything out, he can read a whole lot of things he knows he would never be able to say or explain himself. He reads a lot of heartache in this private collection of bottled up kinks, some things that Cecil has long desperately wanted, some things that Cecil has merely considered in passing... He reads frustration and loneliness. 

And yet through it all, Cecil has still kept a record, and in that, Carlos reads some kind of hope. 

Carlos is grateful for the fact that Cecil has done all the preliminary research, because he doesn't think he'd have known where to look for any of this, if it had been up to him. But he is happy enough to spend a good chunk of his personal time carefully reading over it all and laying out some ideas of his own based on what Cecil's given him.

And, he thinks, he is ready to look at the other folders.


	3. Negotiations and Love Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Cecil move forward.

The green folder had been next, with dry and impersonal research, pages copied from Wikipedia and kink resource websites alike, on the BDSM 'lifestyle' and all that could be related to it, on the subject of aftercare-- which had been several revelations for Carlos-- and all without Cecil's guiding notes. 

When he returns this folder, Cecil shrugs, bringing out the blue one in exchange

"Everything I know is kind of theoretical at this point." He admits. "I don't know what I'll need, with that stuff. Anyway... this one we should look at together."

There are sample contracts and checklists, and instructions on filling them out, and Carlos marks off the things he is uncomfortable with using Cecil's little extra-fine brush and a red ink. Cecil's hard limits have been in place for some time-- long enough that they were in ballpoint pen, like the oldest of the notes in his purple folder. 

"I have some ideas, and I think I can ease myself into being comfortable with all this-- and I really appreciate that I have some... some guidelines all written out, but... I mean, I just... Is it going to feel weird?" Carlos asks, wincing as the word leaves his mouth. 

"I don't know." Cecil shrugs again, his smile hopeful. "I guess that's what we'll have to find out."

"I just don't know if I can handle-- I mean... I mean, I don't mind pet names or anything, but I don't think I could deal with being called, like, 'master' or something. I don't even really like..."

"Carlos." Cecil cuts him off, places a finger to his lips. "Carlos."

His name sounds like butter, the way Cecil says it, and brown sugar. It sounds sweet and melting and slightly sticky. And, as before, it sounds so heavy with the swirl of its own galaxy, and Carlos understands.

"I don't need to call you anything." Cecil continues, though the need for it is gone. "There is no title I could give you that would be sweeter or more wonderful than your name. My Carlos. It means everything that it needs to already. Just saying it makes my heart speed up a little bit. Carlos... Calling you anything else would be an insult in comparison."

"Okay."

"You can call me anything." Cecil offers, shrinking in on himself a little and sidling up to Carlos, to take the brush out of his hand. "I wouldn't mind, anything at all. I-- I'd like anything you want to call me."

"I'll... I'll see what feels right." Carlos lets Cecil put the contract away where the ink can dry. "There's something I want to try tonight. It's just a little thing, so don't get your hopes up or anything, but... I thought maybe..."

Cecil smiles back at him, not too full of expectations, only the warm happiness he tended to bubble over with whenever the subject-- and Carlos' willingness to try understanding it-- came up. A mild gratitude, and an openness that was just so purely Cecil... 

Carlos clears his throat. He summons reserves he did not know he had, and when he speaks again, it is with a far more authoritative tone.

"Cecil, I want you to get undressed for me."

Cecil's pupils darken immediately, Carlos can see the excitement move through him as he complies, as he waits for more.

"Lie on the bed."

And Cecil does, folding his hands over his middle, looking up at his ceiling. His breathing is a little harder, a little faster, than normal, and his lips are parted, a detail Carlos cannot ignore, a detail Carlos needs to touch. He traces those lips with two fingertips and watches Cecil swallow.

"Do you know why you're mine?" Carlos asks, his voice low-- far too even, he thinks, to be his. His voice ought to shake, he feels like shaking. But Cecil looks... enthralled. Transformed. Lighter, as though his worries have lifted away, or melted. And so Carlos' voice remains steady. "Cecil, you can answer me."

"I... asked to be?"

"I chose you." 

Cecil wriggles, once, in a little paroxysm of ecstasy. His eyes flutter closed, his hands tighten on themselves. His smile is beatific.

"I wanted you." Carlos runs his fingers through Cecil's hair and imagines the man would purr if he could. "And when I couldn't stand it anymore... I decided I had to have you, and I called you... I wanted you, though, Cecil. I always did."

"Oh..." He sighs, when Carlos' hand strokes over his brow. He relaxes under the touch, as it maps out his face.

"You're handsome."

"I'm not." Cecil protests.

"Cecil." Carlos' voice is sharp, and he watches Cecil freeze, eyes opening, expression contrite and confused. "I just said you're handsome. Are you going to argue with me?"

"No, Carlos." Cecil says meekly, and a smile overtakes him even as he fights against it.

"You have a beautiful voice." Carlos' fingertips travel lightly down Cecil's throat, the skin warm and soft beneath them, down to his chest. "And you're sweet... You're a sweet guy for me, aren't you, Cecil?"

"Yes, Carlos." Cecil sighs.

"Do you know what I like about you?"

Cecil shakes his head. 

"Cecil..."

"M-my voice. And... I'm sweet."

"And?"

"Handsome." His voice changes, becomes that soft, quavery thing that threatens to crumble in on itself in disbelief. 

"That's right. Do you know what else?" Carlos lets his hand trail over Cecil, from shoulder to shoulder and down in looping circles across his chest, fingertips dragging across short silky hairs. Cecil shakes his head again. "I like this body, Cecil."

"It's not-- I mean-- Yes, Carlos. Thank you." Cecil swallows, and Carlos traces the lines of his body, touches all of him, slow and careful. Spends extra time touching the parts that flinch from his inspection until he is certain that Cecil understands they are loved, each soft curve that impending middle age and life behind the microphone has wrought, places that Cecil remembers as being flat, once, things that did not curve softly half a lifetime ago but that have been soft beneath Carlos' touch for as long as they have loved.

Cecil is shaky, when he finishes. They haven't even done anything, Carlos thinks, except for Cecil it's been everything. And Cecil is hard, though he doesn't seem to put much stock in it until Carlos strips down and gathers him up close. 

"Oh." Cecil's eyes meet Carlos' again, expression surprised, delighted, and he rocks his hips forward, moans and sighs as Carlos kisses his throat and rocks back into him.

It is a slow rut against each other, and Carlos cleans them both up after, with Cecil still looking surprised and delighted, and slightly glassy as Carlos bundles him into bed and makes him drink some water. 

Most of the things he'd read about aftercare do not apply-- Cecil does not need to eat anything, does not need first aid. But he appreciates the cuddle, and Carlos appreciates it a lot himself. He can't imagine moving far from Cecil in that moment, not when Cecil looks at him with fuzzy adoration and clings tight, and whispers 'thank you, Carlos' every so often as if he cannot remember having said it only moments before.

"You're welcome, baby." Carlos whispers, and Cecil's smile intensifies.

He hadn't ever considered calling Cecil 'baby' before, before all of this, but it doesn't sound wrong, doesn't feel wrong in his mouth, and Cecil's appreciation is clear. 

It sticks.


	4. Fifteen Minutes With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communication is key... 
> 
> But there are a lot of ways to communicate.

Spanking is something Carlos can understand-- or at least, Carlos understands that it is common, as kinks go, one of the most common, so when Cecil returns the big folder of Things Cecil Is Curious About to him, he opens to the collage of words and images that illustrates the idea.

"This one is a big maybe for me." He says carefully. "There are a lot of things I might not be comfortable with. But I'd like to talk about it."

Cecil nods eagerly, and kneels next to Carlos on the sofa.

"When did you decide you were interested-- No, I mean-- Do you know why, or-- What about it attracts you? On a theoretical level?"

"Oh, well... It happened in the shower. On the way to the shower. Kind of a long-ish time ago. I was just sort of..." Cecil gives a frustrated sigh at the limits of even his flowery language and begins slapping his thighs in an absentminded rhythm. "Doing that. Trying to think about my grocery list and what I had to get done during the day, and then I just got into the feel of it-- I don't mean the feel of being spanked, I mean the feel of having sort of a beat to think to, so..."

He pauses again, starts up the little rhythm only to throw in smacks to the backs of his hands, to his belly, both sucked in tight and expanded, and then, lifting himself up, to his ass.

"So I was just sort of smacking myself around, so to speak, mostly for the sound--it's skin on skin, you remember, so it's different-- and then as I climb into the shower, I slap my backside, and it's just... There's this moment. Where the sound echoes and my skin is wet and it isn't hard or anything, it just is. Sharp for a half a second and the sound rings out, and... And so I just washed my hair and face and everything, but I forgot all about the list I was making, because I thought-- I was never spanked as a child. Or if I was, I don't recall it. It carried no real... personal meaning to me. No ties to childhood, no negative feelings. It was just this sharp sound and this slight sting, and the idea that if someone else was doing that to me, it would be... okay. Maybe good. It wouldn't be about being punished or about being hurt, but it... For me, it's about-- A lot of these things are about-- someone else being in control. Getting sensations that come from someone else, that start or stop because someone I trust makes it, makes it start or stop."

"So it doesn't have to be... I don't have to be punishing you for something, or pretending to be someone? And it doesn't need to hurt you?"

Cecil nods, and Carlos relaxes. 

"It just has to be about you, and me, and... And I trust you to make me feel things. Even things that hurt, because... Because I trust you to only give me what I need. And... and it's about having your hand on me. Skin on skin."

"Okay. Cecil... I know I read all that stuff about safewords, but--"

"Apple-cinnamon." Cecil supplies.

"No." Carlos shakes his head. 

"Well, Carlos, I don't think there's any such thing as a safeword that isn't a little silly. That's kind of the point, isn't it? It breaks the mood."

"I mean-- I don't wan-- I mean, I just want you to say 'stop'. Or 'no', or 'don't'. I mean, if you say stop, I'm going to. I'm not ready to play any games with those words, okay? I don't know if I can be."

Cecil's eyes crinkle at the corners, and he nods and takes Carlos' hand. "All right. I don't need to play that kind of game, either. I would much rather say yes."

"Only when you mean it."

"I would much rather mean it." He smiles, a little sly. 

Carlos feels himself relax. 

"Do you think about me spanking you?"

"Sometimes, a little." Cecil confesses, voice soft, and Carlos squeezes the hand that holds his. 

"Tell me about it."

"I think about you coming into the shower with me-- I thought about you coming into the shower with me, the other day. Just giving me one to get me to move over. Except then you would notice, if I liked it. And you might give me more."

"Did you do it to yourself?"

Cecil nods. "I pretended you were with me. Just a few times... It-- it's not the same when it's me, it doesn't feel like doing something for you. But it was a way to vary the act. The, um..."

"Masturbating act?" Carlos raises an eyebrow, and kisses Cecil's reddening cheek. "Hey, I'd be lying if I said I never thought about you in the shower, while engaging in some acts of my own. Sometimes, you know, I wake up on mornings when we haven't been together and it happens. So would you want it to happen like that? Standing in the shower? Or do you picture it other ways?"

He thinks he wouldn't mind indulging Cecil in this, but he'd like their first time engaging in any given kink to be in a place without risk of slipping, falling, hitting something vulnerable against something hard or sharp-cornered. Just until he can know how Cecil will react when it is really Carlos administering the spanking.

The administering of a stimulus, he thinks. Usually unpleasant, but... 

He wonders if he could train Cecil, into accepting an unpleasant stimulus as a pleasant one, if administered alongside the right incentive. He would never-- even without all the ethics courses, he thinks he could never, not without explaining every step. He wouldn't use his boyfriend as a lab rat, but he wonders if he might give Cecil the option someday of pretending to be one. Explaining how the experiment would work in real life, and giving Cecil the choice of playing it out as a scenario. Some of the things in the folder suggest that Cecil would like that, and while Carlos cannot imagine getting off on it, he could at least act out his role satisfactorily, if it came to that.

But now, in the present, Cecil is gazing at him with big round eyes, hopeful eyes. 

"How would you picture it?" Cecil asks him, breathless.

"Cecil, baby..."

The change is immediate-- Cecil had been eager before, but now the switch is fully flipped, now he is smaller somehow, and he is not eager because Carlos is willing to talk about his kinks, he is eager because Carlos can be pleased. And all from one little word...

"Yes, Carlos?"

"Take off all your clothes for me."

"Yes, Carlos."

Cecil folds every article neatly and stacks them, on the floor.

Carlos scoots to the middle of the sofa and pats his thigh, and Cecil moves to lie across his lap. 

"Like this?"

"That's good." Carlos nods, and Cecil wriggles happily, settling himself in his spot. "Give yourself one for me, so I can see and hear just how hard you want it."

Cecil reaches back and slaps himself, just enough for a good solid sound, for the curve of his ass to yield to his palm. Carlos does his best to match it, and his own hand lingers after, squeezing. 

"Oh--"

"Does that hurt?"

"N-no. No, that's... that's wonderful." Cecil sighs. "That's perfect."

Carlos does it again. 

After every blow, he squeezes, kneads, feels Cecil up, sometimes sliding his hand down to the back of a thigh for a change. 

After fifteen minutes, there has been more squeezing than spanking, Cecil's ass only just pink, no distinct marks at all. Warm, in a gentle way, under Carlos' hand. 

"Good." He whispers, giving Cecil a gentle tap. "Get up for me now, baby."

Cecil does, shaky on his feet a brief moment, his smile apologetic for the faltering. 

Carlos gets down on his own knees, behind Cecil, letting his lips travel over that just-pink skin. Letting one hand grip Cecil's hip to keep him upright, the other sliding around to wrap around the cock he'd felt jabbing into his thigh as the spanking session-- such as it was-- had gone on.

"You were so good, baby," He whispers, lips still moving against Cecil's skin. "You deserve a treat, for how nice you were for me. Do you want me to take good care of you, baby?"

"I do, I do, thank you, Carlos..."

"That's right, sweet guys like you get taken care of, like I'm going to take care of you. Every time you're good for me, I'm going to take good care of you. You're sweet for me, aren't you, Cecil?"

"Yes." It is almost a sob. "Always. Carlos!"

"Good boy." Carlos praises, and he feels so awkward saying it, like he's talking to a dog and not his boyfriend, but it wrings another near-sob from Cecil that sounds like ecstasy. "Cielito, I want you to come for me."

That... that feels less awkward. Natural. Perhaps 'baby' was what Cecil needed to hear, but 'cielito' is what Carlos needs to say. 

Cecil is, of course, so eager to obey, to please, and he comes in Carlos' hand with another little sob and a long sigh, and Carlos needs to slide an arm around his waist to keep him from sliding down onto the floor, needs to awkwardly get to his own feet.

He puts Cecil on the sofa, lying on his side, and Cecil tucks his knees up as close to his chest as he can while Carlos goes to fetch his blanket.

It is even more garish in the light of the living room, but he wraps it around Cecil because it's soft, and warm, and Cecil is naked and cold. And he finds he actually likes the way it looks.


	5. Signed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil experiences strange fits of depersonalized angst at work sometimes. Carlos comes up with a way to fix it.
> 
> (very short this time, just the tiniest baby mini-chapter)

"I heard." 

It's the first thing Carlos says as he comes through the door, where Cecil is wringing his hands, his brow knit, his worry so physically overblown that it would be comical, if he was anyone else. On anyone else, it would be comedy-- an exaggeration done for effect. But Cecil is exaggeration, and on him it is only real worry, and Carlos can't find anything funny about that.

Cecil nods, a small, distressed sound escaping him, and Carlos moves him to the sofa. It is Cecil's apartment, but it is Carlos who locks the door. Someday, he thinks, maybe someday very soon, it won't be Cecil's apartment, but theirs. Or a house, though that is a big investment, a lot of money. Maybe something in between, but first he has Cecil to look after in the here and now, and planning for the future will wait.

Carlos finds the felt-tip eyeliner that Cecil had been using to write his shopping list on his forearm since the ban on pens. Waterproof... which means Cecil generally keeps the smudgy remains of 'Milk, Eggs, Rice Based Baked Goods' on his arm for a couple of days after any given trip to Ralph's, his lists only half-scrubbed away in the shower. He rolls Cecil's sleeve up, and sits beside him on the couch.

'1 Bar Fancy Chocolate w/ Money From Carlos', he writes, kissing the side of Cecil's head. He thinks about the state of Cecil's cupboards the last time he'd poked around the kitchen.

'Chamomile Tea', he adds. 'Make Immediately on Return Home'

Cecil makes a soft noise, and Carlos kisses him again. 

'Makeup Remover For Arm Because This Is Ridiculous'

Cecil laughs, and this time he turns to catch Carlos' lips with his own. 

'Bubble Bath', Carlos rounds the list out with. 'Do Not Open w/out Carlos'

"Tomorrow I want you to go to the store while I'm at the lab." He murmurs, nuzzling at Cecil's temple. "And then you're going to take care of yourself. You're going to make a cup of tea and give me a phone call, and I'm going to come over and help you take care of yourself. Okay?"

"Kay." Cecil agrees.

Carlos removes Cecil's tie, unbuttons his shirt. 

He strips him slowly-- and carefully, when it comes to getting his sleeve off over the new shopping list. 

'You Are Cecil Palmer', he writes, on Cecil's other arm. 'You Exist And So Does The World Around You'.

Cecil smiles at him, tired and grateful.

"Thanks. I might need that tomorrow."

"I thought so. And I am sorry I'm making you buy your own chocolate--"

"Don't be."

"But I have to spend some time at work. And I'd rather use my time away from the lab for pampering my baby at home instead of grocery shopping..."

He can feel Cecil melting, as his head tilts, neck open to be nuzzled at. Carlos has learned to spot the invitation, and Cecil smells delightful, warm woods and incense and something strangely... papery, in his cologne. It is a pleasure to nose at the curve of his naked throat after that scent. 

He uncaps the eyeliner again, and writes 'CARLOS' over Cecil's heart.


	6. Sealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos dives back into the box...

Carlos has avoided bringing the cuffs out, for a while yet. It isn't that he's afraid he won't be able to get into it-- more and more, he's sure he'll like them, but he needs data first. He needs to be sure of where Cecil will go, when they reach the edges of control, the tipping point where Cecil loses every scrap of control he has not given over to Carlos' keeping. He needs to know what Cecil will need after, and needs to train himself to give it, before he can let himself tumble over into any similar abysses. 

Cecil doesn't ask about them-- Cecil has a whole book full of fantasies that Carlos can pick from, after all, and he is never disappointed by the things they get around to trying, those fantasies that make it past the 'talk' phase. All things in their time, and he does want to be patient. 

Still, when Carlos pulls him close, and whispers in his ear, 'go bring me your cuffs', he rushes to comply.

"Good." Carlos smiles, when Cecil presents them. He holds them out on flat palms, the only thing missing is a silver platter, and Cecil's joy is palpable when his hair is stroked and praise doled out.

Carlos has a duffel bag with him, and he hasn't dared venture into Night Vale's 'adult' store-- the window displays are always terrifying and sometimes can't actually be looked at by human eyes for more than a second at a time. He got a nosebleed once just catching a glimpse of it as he drove past-- but a scientist is nothing if not resourceful, after all, and a trip to Target and one to a small craft store have provided him with everything he really needs. 

"Clothes off." Carlos orders, and they're gone. He's impressed with the speed at which Cecil manages to have them off and folded in a neat pile on his coffee table. He slides his hand around to give Cecil's backside a warm squeeze. "Good. Very nice. I like this view... but I think it can be improved on, don't you?"

"Yes, Carlos." Cecil nods, presenting his wrists, eyes bright. "Thank you, Carlos."

"You're very welcome, baby." He fastens them carefully. "How's that? Too tight?"

Cecil shakes his head. "N-no, that... that feels perfect, Carlos, thank you."

"I'm glad." He smiles, kissing Cecil's knuckles, savoring the way the blush spreads across Cecil's cheeks when he does, the way he smiles back, so pleased and so excited. 

Carlos leads him back to the bedroom by those cuffs. The thick black leather bands stand out beautifully against Cecil's skin, the perfect paleness of the insides of his wrists. He likes that about Cecil, the way the softest, most vulnerable parts of him are so often the most pale. A visual indicator of his delicacy. It is not universal, no-- Cecil has soft parts that are no paler than the rest of him, and vulnerable places that flush rosy and dark... but the places where it holds true are nice still, the insides of joints where a vein may be visible, the slight curve of his belly, below the navel, where even at the pool the skin never sees sun.

He drops his duffel on the bed and releases the cuffs. 

"Cecil... baby... can I keep on tying you up for me? Can I tie you up just the way I want you?"

Cecil's pupils widen, and he nods.

"That's my sweet guy." Carlos tilts his head forward and kisses his brow. "And I can make love to you like we talked about, when you're tied up for me?"

"Y-yes, please, Carlos."

"Thank you, Cecil." He keeps his voice measured, controlled. He can't be cool, but then, he doesn't think Cecil wants him to be. Reserved, perhaps, but never distant. "You're a gift, and I appreciate that. I'm going to take very good care of you. That's what you deserve, isn't it? For being so sweet? For being so good for me? You want to be good, don't you?"

Cecil nods again, eyes as wide as Carlos has ever seen them. 

"Just remember, if it's too much, I want you to tell me right away if you need to take a little break. If you say 'wait', then we'll pause and breathe a little, but I won't untie you or take the cuffs off. Okay? You remember that?"

"I remember." Cecil nods, because he does, they've discussed this-- not the restraints, but the pausing and the stopping and all those safety things that Carlos has been concerned with since they began. 'Precautions in place', as Carlos says, regardless of what he is asking Cecil to do, 'for both of us'.

"And if you say 'stop', then I'll undo everything for you, right away." Carlos repeats, because precautions are important to Carlos. He is a scientist, and he goes about even this as a scientist, and Cecil could not adore him more, looks up at him with an aching love.

"I know. I remember."

"Good. I'm glad. I want you to be comfortable." Carlos says, and the words have become familiar, and Cecil's heart still flips over in his chest every time he hears them.

"I am. Thank you, Carlos."

"You're welcome, baby."

And Cecil beams, because he adores being Carlos' baby, and he adores being able to have both cuffs on his wrists at once at last, placed there by someone who loves him.

Carlos pulls a clean white bedsheet, brand new and freshly laundered anyway, out of his bag, and spreads it on the bed. He has to half-lift Cecil to get him in place on it, and Cecil wriggles and cranes his neck to bury his nose in it, the scent of Carlos' detergent, Carlos' fabric softener, the fresh-linen scent just like when Carlos returns laundry that has spent the night at his place and tumbled through cycles alongside Carlos' own. 

"Comfortable?" Carlos laughs, and Cecil's sigh would tell the whole story even without his enthusiastic nod. "Good."

Cecil stretches his arms over his head, arches under Carlos' touch as a hand travels down his chest, down his stomach. After a little petting, Carlos winds the sheet around him, lifting him as necessary to get it wrapped about his chest. He returns to the duffel bag, pulling out a roll of wide satin ribbon, a deep, bright purple with a slight sheen to it. It suits Cecil, and he lifts him up again, produces a pair of scissors to cut the ribbon to the proper lengths. 

He ties it around Cecil's elbows to keep them close together, ties another loop double-wrapped around Cecil's chest, one around his waist, to keep him wrapped up. He leaves a nice open gap before winding sheet and ribbon around Cecil's legs. White cotton, billowing through tight-wrapped ribbon in places, and Cecil is the loveliest gift Carlos has ever seen.

"Cecil..." He growls in the man's ear, hand closing over the increasingly-erect cock. He'd enjoyed that as well, watching the way Cecil slowly hardened throughout the process. "You're beautiful... And all mine. I could keep you like this for a long time, just looking at you."

Cecil whimpers, and it is definitely one of his happy whimpers, eyes still bright with that excitement, wide and dark, like strange jewels.

"How is it? Not too tight?"

"It's perfect, Carlos. Thank you, Carlos."

"Good."

Carlos kisses him. Cecil remains passive, even as he kisses back-- sweetly receptive, offering everything, certainly not just lying there, but he keeps himself very much to his role.

"Mine." Carlos repeats, after breaking the kiss with a nip to Cecil's lower lip. "To do anything I want with."

Cecil nods, his smile small-- Carlos wonders if it is hard for him to manage that, when everything about him seems to want to beam and grin and crow in triumph. And he wonders how one feels triumph, in a position like Cecil's, but that's what it is. The triumph, he supposes, of being claimed. Chosen first out of everyone and wanted utterly. That is, after all, so much of what Cecil has wanted. What he'd waited his whole life for.

He lets his hands travel over Cecil's bound body, feeling him up through layers of sheet and winding ribbons. It's not traditionally sexy, maybe... but it is a lovely picture. He can't find it as ridiculous as he thinks it should be, because it is Cecil, because Cecil is happy. Cecil wriggles occasionally, a combination of a happiness he can't contain and having restraints to test, so much of himself rendered at least almost immobile. He can wriggle, but not much else, and there is something about having his legs tight together, his elbows, about having bands around his chest that feel so wonderfully tight when he inflates his lungs with the deepest breaths. Something to push out against and really feel holding him in.

Carlos embarks upon the slowest blowjob he has ever given, as Cecil writhes under him and bites his lip against several noises, and finally, as the noises just come, even when Cecil cannot. 

He draws it out as long as he can, and the sob of relief he hears when he finally does let Cecil finish, finally swallows his release down... He isn't sure whether it goes straight to his cock or to his heart, or if it hits him somewhere in between, and he crawls up to kiss Cecil's cheeks, to straddle his waist and grip his hands and reassure him with lips that trace tear tracks.

"You're so good." He promises. "Oh, baby, you're so good..."

Cecil smiles and turns to nuzzle against him, pushes himself up as best he can to try and be closer to Carlos. The opening in the sheet that binds him leaves just enough room, for Carlos to slick his cock up with spit and slip between close-pressed thighs, and he fucks into the space he's given himself and sucks a bright mark against Cecil's throat, and lets one hand slide up Cecil's arms, feeling bare skin and soft ribbon and those thick leather bands. 

After, he massages lotion into Cecil's wrists, and into any spots that seem chafed and a few that do not, cleans up every last trace of come with a wet cloth and washes Cecil's face with a second. 

"Cielito..." He hums, cradling Cecil under the furry green blanket. "How do you feel now?"

"Good." Cecil sighs, warming back up, gaze and smile as fuzzy as his blanket. "You're so good to me, Carlos."

"You deserve it." Carlos presses, kissing his forehead, his nose, his lips. "My good boy. My sweet guy. My baby. Was that what you wanted?"

Cecil nods. 

"Sometime we can look at other things, I just bought... I thought the sheet would be good, I didn't know if rope would cut into you too much, and then I thought of the ribbon, but I had the sheet already. And I thought it might keep you... I know you get kind of chilly sometimes, I hoped it would... Well, maybe we don't need it, but... It was still good for you?"

"You're so good to me."

"Good. You looked good. I like the ribbons, actually... Might try them without the sheet next time. It's a nice color on you."

Cecil laughs and nuzzles at Carlos' chin. "You're sweet."

"I'm glad you had a good time, Cecil. Are you ready to be alone for a minute so I can go to the kitchen?"

"Just for a minute?"

"Just for a minute. Do you want a glass of water, or do you want some juice?"

"... Juice?" Cecil asks, hopeful, and Carlos laughs and kisses him.

"Anything you want. Well, provided we have it in the apartment. But I know you have juice. Did you eat yet tonight?"

"Waited for you." He shakes his head.

"Okay. Juice first, then... How about you come sit on the couch in your blanket while I fix us something? You want some soup? You want me to feed you bites in front of the TV?"

Cecil nods. "Will you? You can have the remote. As long as I can have you..."

"You can have me." Carlos promises, sliding out from under the blanket and looking for his discarded boxers. "Sit tight, juice in bed first."

Cecil sits tight, smile wide. Soon, he will be bundled up on the sofa, letting Carlos feed him soup while the science channel plays on TV, and after that, Carlos will stand in the bathroom doorway while he brushes his teeth, will walk him to bed and ask him, as he does every time, if he is warm enough, if he needs anything else, any help before they fall asleep. And after that, Carlos will wake him up with a kiss, with an apology for having woken him, with a shy request for a blowjob or a handjob or even just a few minutes to cuddle and talk about nothing, before Carlos leaves for the lab, leaves Cecil to nap for an hour or two before starting his day properly. 

And maybe, he thinks, if he feels really well-rested, he will get out of bed to make Carlos a nice big breakfast, because Carlos really does take such good care of him... and he thinks he would like to.


	7. Delivered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos pays attention to things Cecil likes. Cecil gets a present.

The first of Carlos' packages arrives at the lab-- and it is times like this he regrets the fact that he lives right above his work, because there really isn't somewhere else for it to go. At least he is pretty sure the other thing he's waiting for will be wrapped with... discretion. And there is nothing racy about the label on this one, all it earns him is a little teasing from his colleagues about being so busy with work that he needs to mail order his socks instead of going to Target like a normal person.

Cecil likes socks. Cecil likes socks more than Carlos would have thought normal-- especially considering the fact that half the time, Cecil wears sandals, and does not commit the fashion faux pas of mixing the two. But, when he goes into the station, he wears nice loafers and cuffed trousers and very brightly colored socks. Socks with neon stripes and patterns. Socks with dinosaurs, with constellations, with octopi... He'd bought Carlos a pair that had had little biohazard symbols, and had been so pleased to drop by the lab and see Carlos wearing them. 

And so Carlos found out where Cecil bought his interesting socks, because Carlos wasn't really ready to have any kind of specialty male lingerie in his browser history-- he remembers too vividly the time he nearly got kicked out of the house in high school over an International Male catalog, and though cooler heads had prevailed in the end, well... At any rate, he's sure that any kind of really good corset custom-fitted to Cecil would be outside his price range, and so they hadn't discussed those. Not yet. Maybe someday, maybe if he became wildly successful, wrote a book about his findings that went somewhere instead of just publishing papers too dry for the reading public and too outlandish for the scientific community. Maybe even just some future Christmas after saving and careful budgeting, if Cecil decided he really wanted one, Carlos could make it happen...

For the time being, though, he'd thought at least he could spoil Cecil on a reasonable level with some new socks. And then, browsing the men's section, he'd seen them.

They wouldn't be mid-thigh on Cecil, no... but still, they were over-the-knee socks, promising to stretch to accommodate Cecil's size! Navy with a thin white stripe, perfectly affordable, coming to him from a perfectly innocent source!

He doesn't mention them when he texts Cecil, only that his workload is flexible enough to take the night off, and to ask if he could pick Cecil up at the station after his show.

He is not surprised to hear about it on the radio. He is also not surprised by the hooting, the calls of 'Casanova', and the sudden deluge of everyone else's request for a night off.

"As long as you don't have anything that will explode without you, yes, fine. Everyone take a night off. But don't complain to me if you come in tomorrow and have to redo something because no one was here to observe... anything." He waves them, and the teasing off, and for a while, everyone works to the sounds of the radio, and everyone pretends that Carlos is not smiling just a little too dreamily as he lets his boyfriend's voice wash over him. He's gotten pretty good, he likes to think, at not being distracted, but every so often he can't help giving a little more attention to Cecil, even in absentia.

He leaves the lab during the weather, package tucked under his arm, and he wraps it in an old jacket in the backseat to keep it hidden.

He meets Cecil just outside the booth, with a kiss chaste enough that he doesn't think it will somehow anger Station Management or scandalize any interns who might pick that moment to come around a corner or... materialize suddenly. He knows that's Cecil's hope, at least, for the one who'd dematerialized earlier in the week. 

"Your place or mine?" He offers. Normally he goes to Cecil's-- it's a little neater, and it means not bringing Cecil through the lab while everyone is working-- or dealing with the teasing if Cecil came back down through the lab while everyone was working in the morning-- but he does actually have food in the fridge and reasonably clean sheets for once, and he wouldn't be too embarrassed about the state of the place. And he's willing to deal with his coworkers. No one left on the team has a real problem with the fact that he has a boyfriend... and maybe Cecil would like that, being seen leaving. Certainly he does a fair amount of preening any time they go out together, at being on Carlos' arm in public.

"I..." Cecil pauses, smile shy. "I'd like to go to yours. If--?"

"I have a spare toothbrush you can use. If you want to spend the night, I mean. And yes, Cecil, of course it's all right, I asked. If you don't mind not having your pajamas..."

Cecil grins and takes Carlos' arm. "Oh, I'm sure I'll make do without them. And I would love to spend the night."

"Good. I was hoping. I-- I have something for you. Oh, well-- I was going to surprise you with it. Well, I still will, when we get inside, with what it is. Anyway, I just wanted to get you a little something."

"No occasion?" Cecil beams.

"Just because you're sweet." Carlos smiles, and if Cecil's reaction is any indication, that is the right answer, better than 'no reason', better than 'just because' alone. He'd thought about saying 'just because you're good', but felt outside the relative seclusion of one of their apartments, that may have crossed a line, and he's glad that 'sweet' was right.

Cecil's gaze is adoring on the drive, as he talks about how he's been and who he's seen since last he was with Carlos. It's a comfortable balance-- there will be a Scene, something Carlos had hoped for when the package arrived and something Cecil had felt when Carlos picked him up, but before that scene begins, even as Cecil eases himself into the mood, he has some time to talk to his boyfriend before he completes his transformation into the submissive creature who does not talk about his day, about the world outside the two of them, about annoyances that have no room in him when he belongs to Carlos. To get everything out and aired, and to make Carlos laugh a little bit, and to ask about how Science has been going, to nod and listen in turn as Carlos talked about tests they were running. 

The scientists still packing up as they head up through the lab whistle, which Carlos ducks his head and blushes and grumbles over, and which Cecil meets with a bright smile and little waves, and a soft 'oh, don't mind me!'. Carlos has the package, still wrapped in his jacket, and a few other things from his backseat, under the premise of tidying up.

"I've got leftover chili I was thinking I could warm up." He offers, escorting Cecil to his couch. It's plaid, and ancient, and he doesn't think it's nearly as nice as Cecil's... but it's soft, and Cecil immediately cozies himself into the slightly sagging cushion that marks Carlos' habitual reading spot. And his habitual eating spot. His habitual laptop-using spot. His habitual anywhere-but-bed-and-work spot, but he likes seeing Cecil there... 

"That would be lovely." Cecil nods, and he slips his loafers off under the coffee table, and folds his legs up on the sofa. The day's socks are patterned like big ears of corn with giant yellow kernels woven into the fabric, green heels and toes, and they do make Carlos smile. 

He takes the things from the back of his car back into his bedroom, dumping them on top of his dresser. A bunch of old journals that had piled up, mostly, but while he had the privacy, he opened the package. He wished he'd thought ahead for something to wrap them in... the best he can do is dig out a length of the purple ribbon he'd bought for trussing Cecil up with, and his bows are still a little sloppy, but still, a big wide ribbon and around the neatly rolled socks is better than nothing. He leaves it under his jacket for later, once wrapped, and gets to heating up the chili. 

It was the nice thing about owning a family-sized crock pot as a bachelor-- plenty of leftovers whenever he did anything with it. Enough to make a nice dinner for both of them, and Cecil is effusive with praise as always, as they lean back against opposite arms of his couch to play footsie over dinner, Cecil's socks bright and cheerful, Carlos' plain and grey, and he wishes he'd thought ahead and worn the ones from Cecil. Well, maybe Cecil will have more of an effect on his sock wardrobe. He can imagine getting other socks on Christmases and birthdays. He wouldn't mind a pair like Cecil's constellation socks, and he'd looked at some of the more science-y novelty socks when he'd been ordering Cecil's present, though he hadn't bought anything for himself at the time. 

"Do I get my present?" Cecil asks after dinner.

"If you're a good boy." Carlos laughs, crawling over to kiss his nose. "Come on... I'll wash, you dry?"

"Oh, you should really let me-- I mean, you cooked!"

"The crock pot cooked, yesterday. It's not a problem, Cecil. Besides... I'd rather clean up together. It's a little more fun that way." 

Cecil smiles, and follows Carlos into the kitchen, to happily take the dishtowel Carlos hands him, to let their hips bump as they stand, Carlos at the sink and Cecil in front of the drying rack. 

"Ready to be good for me?" Carlos asks, when the brief task is complete. 

Cecil nods, wide-eyed, his posture changing in an instant, his lips pressed together as if to stifle his excitement, to keep himself small, contained.

"Come back to bed with me." Carlos lets the end of Cecil's tie play between his fingers, considering. He walks slowly, tie still in hand. The last thing he wants is to tug, to tighten, but Cecil falls into step with him easily, and Carlos' grip on the tie is loose enough that should that step falter on either side, it will be the tie that slips from his hand, before it can ever tighten on Cecil, around that lovely, sensitive throat.

At Carlos' word, Cecil undresses, hanging his clothes up where they'll stay nice enough for him to go home in come morning. At Carlos' gesture, he sits on the end of the bed.

"Do you want your present, baby?" Carlos asks, standing before him, running a hand over Cecil's head. 

Cecil pushes into his palm with a wide, relaxed smile, eyes shut. 

"Yes, please, Carlos."

"Okay. Keep those eyes closed now... I'll tell you when."

He retrieves the socks, and gives up on making the bow look as nice as he wishes it could. Cecil sits up straight, eyes closed, waiting, and Carlos returns to him, gives him another little pet. 

"Hold out your hands for me."

Cecil does, and Carlos places the little bundle into them, stroking Cecil's face as he does.

"Okay. Open." He smiles.

Cecil's expression is... perfect. His eyes go wide, his mouth forms a soft 'oh' that he almost voices, and he looks up at Carlos as if he can't believe his own luck. And it would be funny, even with Cecil's enjoyment of socks being what it is, except these are a little more special than the average mid-calf men's sock... 

"Would you like to wear them?" Carlos asks, and Cecil nods, too excited for words.

Carlos stops him before he can put them on, kneeling and taking one, and Cecil bites his lip, pupils widening. A tiny sound escapes him as Carlos rolls that first sock up his leg, kissing his knee before it is covered, kissing the spot on his thigh just above the band once it is all the way up. Carlos repeats the process, and he can see the self-restraint Cecil is struggling with not to grab him and kiss him.

"Thank you, Carlos." Cecil sighs, leaning into Carlos' hands once they return to his cheeks, relaxing as their foreheads touch. 

"You're welcome, baby. Now let me look at you..." 

He kisses Cecil before pulling back, standing up to look down at him. Cecil smiles up at him, running his hands up his own legs, calves to knees to just above, letting his excitement show. Wearing nothing but nearly-thigh-high socks and his glasses, Cecil is a sight-- again, one that maybe should have been funny, and yet managed to be anything but.

"You look beautiful." Carlos promises, moving to the bed to push him down onto his back, gently, with a hand spreading out over his chest. He loves how Cecil looks under his hands, how pleased and pliant he is for every touch. "I'll have to look for more pairs sometime... they didn't all come in your size, but I'll check. Are they comfortable?"

"Yes, Carlos." Cecil nods, squirming just a little, trying to worm his way into even more touch without reaching to take it himself. Sometimes Carlos makes him wait, when he gets too eager, and sometimes Carlos gives in and spoils him with full-body contact until he is happy enough he feels he could burst, and he likes never knowing which it will be when he makes his silent bid for even more of Carlos' touch, but this time, when it is a soft kiss to his forehead and Carlos' hand on his leg-- half touching bare leg, half touching him through thin fabric-- it is just right. "Thank you, Carlos."

"I'll check the sizes on the other pairs... There was a pair I was thinking about, that came up to just about three sizes too small... but I think these are nicer. The first pair was solid, and I think the stripes suit you."

"I'm glad you think so, Carlos."

"I think I could admire these legs even more if they were up over my shoulders..." He suggests, nuzzling at Cecil's ear. "Would you like that, baby? Would that make you feel good?"

Cecil nods, and moans a little just at the thought, and he loves being on his back, loves being able to look up while Carlos preps him, to watch Carlos' look of concentration, and to watch Carlos press gentle kisses to his calves. To watch Carlos' face contort in pleasure, to watch him sweat, and pant, and mouth sweet nothings...

And he loves the feeling he finds, when Carlos captures all of his focus in bed, where his own orgasm is of secondary importance, so secondary that coming is like a pleasant surprise instead of a goal, a pleasant surprise Carlos is always careful to give him because he is so occupied with being good for Carlos, and Carlos always, always rewards him when he's good. 

Carlos cleans him up after, and kisses him, and Cecil misses his furry blanket, but Carlos has a quilt. It's not as soft, but it's warm, and it smells like Carlos' laundry... and his toes are nice and warm-- his legs up past his knees are nice and warm-- thanks to his present. 

"Cielito..." Carlos smiles into Cecil's hair. "You... are wonderful. Was that good?"

Cecil nods and snuggles into him. 

"You really do look good in those socks. It's not exactly the sexy thigh highs in your folder--"

"No, but it's a lot cozier after." Cecil chuckles. "I love them. I could even wear them, I mean, just under pants, no one would even know. They'd look just like any other socks."

"True. If you wouldn't overheat."

"At night, maybe."

Carlos nods. "I hoped... I mean, it's... personal. You and your sock collection. I... I like that they're more... more you, than just buying something because it's sexy. And, I mean, they are sexy. But... They're you. And I think you're sexy, so..."

"Thanks."

"Do you need anything else?" 

"Can I lean on you on the way to the bathroom?"

"Okay. Of course." Carlos laughs and kisses Cecil's nose, and his cheeks. "You're adorable. Have I ever mentioned? You... you're just so damn sweet after I can't stop smiling. Of course you can lean on me. If I can put my arms around you. I... I want to plan something really special. I don't know when... But... I want to plan something really special. So if there's something in that folder that we haven't done that you really, really want, then let's talk about it, okay? Next time we get together, let's talk about... about all that."

Cecil nods. Carlos has brought more fantasies than he could have asked for into reality, and he aches in the best way at hearing that Carlos wants to plan something special, as if it was not special enough to be given a gift just because-- just because he is sweet. 

In the morning, the lab is full when he leaves Carlos' apartment, and Carlos squares his shoulder and kisses Cecil's cheek, escorting him to the door amid a few wolf whistles, and a very unapologetic look from Dr. Singh in particular, who always makes a point of saying that Cecil seems like a 'nice boy'.

"You two should come over to our place sometime." He shrugs, as if he had not been a part of the teasing. "Simon complains we never have guests. He'd like your Cecil, they're both..."

"Nice?" Carlos rolls his eyes.

"Yes." Singh blinks. 

"... Are you after my boyfriend's blood?"

"Don't be so dramatic. Of course I am looking for local volunteers for comprehensive genetic testing, but I'm not going to use your boyfriend-- you'll get the ugly taint of bias all over my studies. But, if we talk about work over dinner sometime, maybe he can talk about it on his show and let people know that volunteers are wanted."

"... I'll ask Cecil about getting an announcement in. And I'll ask him about dinner."

It would be nice, he decides. Singh and his partner had both adjusted to Night Vale well, for outsiders-- in fact, when they first arrived, Singh had had a calm about things that Carlos envied-- and maybe it was time that Carlos' friends became Cecil's friends... and vice-versa. Time that their lives really blended together outside of their time spent alone. Dinners with other couples and things like that.


	8. I'm Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos plans an extra special evening around the arrival of another package...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this one is over with this chapter, but at some point there will be more in the same ficverse... It just felt like this was the point where it became contained-- it is, after all, the story of how Carlos becomes comfortable as a Dom, presented through a series of scenes-- and Scenes. And so it has a logical conclusion...

"Tonight." Carlos says, into his phone.

"I'm free." Cecil purrs, still his own master-- more than that, he is answering the phone in his booth, during the weather, and he speaks with the confident mastery of the man who is The Voice of Night Vale. 

It is attractive, of course. Carlos can't see how it could be anything but attractive, it is Cecil's beautiful voice. More than that, he likes being privy to the other sides of Cecil. As much as he has come to adore his sweet, pliant, utterly submissive Cecil, he also still adores the Cecil who first caught his attention as a self-assured velvety voice, the voice that knew all about the town's secrets and would whisper them into listening ears every night, would sometimes bid listeners good night in tones so soaked in sex-appeal that Carlos couldn't believe Cecil didn't know what he was doing. 

He adores the simple fact that Cecil can be both of these and more, and that getting to know one side of Cecil does not remove the others from play.

"I-- I just... I have something I need to show you." He says carefully. He doesn't want to bring anything intimate up while Cecil is in the booth, doesn't want to bring out the excitable submissive in him when he needs to do his job. That would be crossing a line. But he'd just found the package in a big pile of incoming mail, hidden beneath mailing envelopes of scientific journals and boxes of petri dishes and pipettes, its plain brown paper indistinguishable from any number of things he might receive for professional reasons, and he couldn't wait to at least make sure that Cecil would be up to a visit.

"Can you meet me at my apartment? Give me a half hour after my show to get home and freshen up? There was... a weird accident in the booth this afternoon. Really sticky."

"Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah, no, I'm fine. Just... sticky. And... well, with any luck it won't stain. No loss of life or limb, only dignity and maybe a necktie." Cecil laughs. "As lovely as it is to hear your voice, dear Carlos, the weather won't go on forever, not even for you."

"Of course. I just-- I wanted to check-- Right." Carlos nods. "I'll see you then."

"I'll see you then." Cecil echoes. 

They've talked, a little more, about experiences Cecil has yet to try, and discovered a few reactions-- ice cubes are a definite go, an accidental discovery made while eating popsicles shirtless and waiting for Cecil's apartment super to finish the hour of ritual chanting that would fix the air conditioner-- and Cecil had been over the moon about playing scientific specimen. It wasn't a game that Carlos had thought he would get much out of, but he had liked being able to examine Cecil thoroughly, and he'd figured specimen might at least be sexier than slave, something he really wasn't sure he could deal with. 

And he had gotten one useful piece of information out of it.

When Cecil's show ends, Carlos sets an alarm on his phone for a half hour. 

He's glad he has his own key-- when he lets himself in, Cecil is wearing a silky robe, hair wet, and Carlos isn't sure there is anything on under the robe. It certainly clings in a way that suggests a lack of underwear, and it's... so short. 

"You look nice." He greets, managing not to drop the package in his hands. It requires coordination he isn't sure he possesses to keep from dropping it as he drops his keys into his lab coat pocket and shrugs out of it, one arm at a time, to hang on Cecil's coatrack. 

"Oh! Gosh, Carlos, I thought I had a minute left... I was going to get dinner taken care of, and I thought about putting on pyjama pants..."

"Don't." Carlos smiles. It falls, crumbling with his nerves, with his racing heart. 

"What did you want to show me?" Cecil moves to touch his arm, hand cool and soft against Carlos' overheating skin. "Is it Science?"

"No. It's... Cecil, do you remember when you wanted to play lab specimen?"

Cecil nods, eyes bright, wide. "You had a tape recorder. You took measurements." He sighs. "You even made notes, in-- in definitely-not-pen." 

"I made one note." Carlos nods as well, letting Cecil lead him to the couch. Cecil leaves his side to grab the scissors from his junk drawer, looking expectantly at the package in Carlos' lap. "While I was measuring you. Because I... I thought-- I wanted to be sure, about... I wanted something to fit you. So before I could order it, I had to... well, I had to be... certain."

Cecil rests his hands on his knees, and they come in together, dainty. "Is it more socks?"

"No. It's kind of the opposite of that."

"... Gloves?"

"Okay, not the opposite of that. I don't even think gloves is the opposite of socks, I don't... Nothing is really the opposite of socks." Carlos takes a deep breath. "Cecil, I want you to take this, and open it, and... and I want you to look at what I bought and think about whether or not you want it. And we can talk about it, and how you feel about it, and what it means to us..."

"You almost have me worried." Cecil teases, but he takes the package, and the scissors. 

Carlos just sits, his insides twisting, palms sweating as the brown paper tears, as the packing tape is severed neatly, as the air pacs and tissue paper inside the newly-opened box are gently pulled and peeled away. And then Cecil gasps, hand fluttering to the 'O' of his mouth, to his throat, to his chest.

"Oh-- oh, Carlos, you didn't-- For me?"

"I looked at so many. If this isn't the right one, we can order something different. I-- I know it doesn't match your cuffs, but..."

Cecil reaches in, delicate fingers lifting the collar free and holding it up, turning it, his eyes wide and sparkling as he looks it over. Purple suede, soft under his fingertips, with a gleaming silver O-ring. The scale was nice, and he held it up to himself with a small, lost smile. 

"Maybe I could find cuffs that match it-- and at least it's the same color as the ribbon I bought you, so... And it doesn't matter to me if they don't match, if it doesn't to you--"

"For me?" He repeats, his voice smaller. 

"Y-yeah." Carlos nods. "If you want it. Or... if you aren't sure, we can... I'll hold onto it for a while, and... I mean, I want you to have time to think about it if that's what you need, but..."

But he had read all of the material Cecil had gathered, and he'd known, or hoped he did, what it would mean, and he'd wanted it. He'd wanted so badly to be able to wrap something oh so carefully around the delicate column of Cecil's throat, to lock it into place and say 'mine' and mean 'forever'. Forever and ever. With everything that came with it, all the responsibilities that had seemed vast at first, all the games he wasn't sure he would ever understand. He understood them now. He wanted to have them for the rest of his life. 

He'd looked at so many, for one that said 'Cecil'. Patent leather that would have shone like ink, pebbled brown leather and brass, antiqued-looking... they'd felt almost-right in different ways. There had been ones made of chain, or metal, and of knotted or braided parachute cord, that he hadn't gravitated to at all. One with a big bell on it, like you would put on a cat, which had been... cute, but not right at all, not for something permanent. He liked the O ring, he knew right away that was the only adornment he really needed, just one, simple and clean and round and infinite, that he could hook a finger through. Could clip a tag or a bell to on occasion if he really did feel like it, if it would please Cecil, but when he'd seen the suede...

It would be soft, against Cecil's skin. That was a big plus, if he wanted to have Cecil in it for long periods of time... and he hoped that, if this was what Cecil wanted, then Cecil would enjoy being locked into it. 

And the purple... well, it would match the ribbons, though not the cuffs. And it would look so lovely with all of Cecil's tunics, not just the purple one. It would look lovely with Cecil's pajamas, and with Cecil's old worn tee shirts... It would look lovely on Cecil.

"Carlos..." Cecil sighs, with all the weight and the lightness and the adoration that he had ever put into it. "I've dreamed of this, ever since you-- Ever since... I've dreamed of this. Will you?"

He scoots closer, along the sofa, until their knees bump together, presenting the collar with both hands, and then leaning forward to present himself.

"It's beautiful." He whispers, when Carlos locks it around his neck at last, no shortage of caressing during the act. 

"It's beautiful on you." Carlos whispers as well. It seems right to, somehow.

"Thank you, Carlos. I love it."

"You deserve it." He presses, stroking Cecil's chin, tilting him into a kiss. "You're so good for me, baby... How does that feel?"

"It's perfect." Cecil reaches up to touch it, a pleased flush across his cheeks. "You... measured my neck so that you could order it? Oh, Carlos... you spoil me."

"Only what you deserve." Carlos smiles, and kisses him again. "You earned this, Cecil. You earn all the sweet things that I give you, and all the things I do for you. You earn it all, by being such a sweet, loving guy for me. You are patient, and... kind. And you're my rock. You have been since I came here. And taking care of you... that makes me feel... It makes me feel powerful, when everything else makes me feel powerless. When I can't do anything at work, when I can't... when I can't deal with things, and everything goes wrong, and I come over here, everything's better. You do that. I hold you, and I have... I have some of the answers again."

"I just want to be good for you." Cecil blinks, eyes wet. 

"Baby, you are." Carlos gathers him up into a hard hug. "Always."

"Always..." He sighs. "I like that."

"I'll put it on you every time we have a night in together... okay? And... And if, someday, you decide you want to wear it out, then we'll go out." Carlos promises. He's seen stranger accessories in Night Vale, he doesn't think it will telegraph the details of their love life if Cecil does wear his collar with one of those tunics. He thinks, with some of the fashion he's seen around town, Cecil could wear his long socks, could have them disappear up under hiking shorts, and no one would blink at it.

"Oh, Carlos..."

Carlos rocks Cecil in his arms, kissing his temple and nosing at his hair. 

"I want to keep you forever." He stresses again. "You're mine, and I want to take good care of you for as long as you'll let me. I want you to stay mine... I want you to never worry that I don't want that. So... Now you'll always know. You can keep it somewhere special when you're not wearing it, we can get you a little reminder-- I know you can't exactly wear it to the station, but we could figure out a-- a day collar, if that's something you want. A keychain or a bracelet or a... a special tie bar with something... something on it. I love you, Cecil. Forever and ever."

"I love you, Carlos." Cecil sighs, stroking Carlos' chest and nuzzling at his chin. "I love you so much. You take such good care of me, you... you accepted so much, and you... You really embrace the things that are important to me, you do so much to make me happy... I couldn't ask for a better boyfriend. You're so good to me. And it makes me so happy to be good for you. Always. Forever. And ever."

Carlos squeezes him tight. He tries-- he doesn't know if he's really as good as Cecil says, he knows he still has habits that are less than optimal, as a boyfriend. But... as a Dom, he thinks he's gotten pretty good. Sometimes he loses himself in his work for days on end and Cecil has to drag him back out, sometimes he makes messes, or chews with his mouth open... those are all 'not ideal boyfriend' flaws he still has to work on, but he's gotten into the swing of domming for Cecil. When the little switch flicks, he's not Carlos the messy, work-obsessed boyfriend, he's Carlos the caring, reliable Dom, the guy Cecil trusts to catch him when he falls apart-- to be the one to make him fall apart. He could be a better boyfriend, but he's glad to hear Cecil couldn't ask for one... 

"Bed?" He asks, nuzzling at Cecil's ear, feeling the shudder of excitement go through the body in his arms. "Oh... I see you like that idea. Are you eager for me now, baby? You need some loving now? I bet you do... you need me to lay you down and show you just how to be a good boy for me... just need a little guidance, don't you?"

"Yes, Carlos... please." Cecil sighs again, shivers and clings.

Carlos leads him with a finger through that O ring, and he unties the belt of Cecil's robe before pushing him gently down to the bed. 

"I'm going to suck your cock." Carlos says, his voice very carefully measured. "And I want you to pay very good attention for me, because I'm going to show you exactly how I want it. A real hands-on lesson. So when I finish, you're going to come give me the perfect blowjob. Can you pay attention for me, baby?"

"Yes, Carlos."

"Good." He praises, not too effusively, just to encourage. 

He demonstrates his own favorite techniques for Cecil, not that Cecil really needs him to-- Cecil's discovered them all on his own, after all. But so many of them are things Cecil likes as well, minus some of the drawn-out teasing. Carlos tries to balance what he loves best with what Cecil does, tries to design the real, honest Perfect Blowjob, half of his preferences, half of Cecil's, the best of both worlds. It's fun to devise, and fun to receive, when Cecil crawls into his lap after to enthusiastically return the favor. 

"Good... You're so good..." He groans, keeps up the litany as best he can during and doesn't stop after, panting through the praise. "Cecil, baby, you're so good..."

Cecil is pleased, can visibly barely contain his joy, and Carlos pets at him and whispers even more praise. 

He goes through the clean-up routine after, and wraps Cecil in his fluffy blanket amid kisses and more praise.

"I'm yours." Cecil all but sobs into Carlos' chest. "I'm all yours, Carlos, I'm so yours..."

"I know, baby... I know... Shh, you did good, so good. It's over now, you did a good job, you made me feel so good. It's time to relax for me, okay? Can you relax for me, Cielito?"

Cecil nods and lets Carlos dry a few tears. 

"No one's done anything like this for me before."

"Good. You're mine." Carlos smiles, kissing his forehead. "Now I do this for you. Shh... you're such a good, good Cecil. Look at how lovely you are in your new collar, oh, look at how sweet you are for me... that's it, breathe. Relax."

He heats up soup, once Cecil is ready to let him go, and spoon-feeds him bites.

"My favorite." Cecil hums, smiling brightly. He is still only on broth, rich and sweet with tomato, but Carlos gives him a real, full bite after that, with rice and a small meatball. 

"That's right, Cielito... it's a special occasion."

"I'm yours." He puffs up at that, proud. 

"You are. All mine. So I'm going to take good care of my good boy."

"Carlos... will you take my picture?" Cecil asks, voice small again. 

"In a little bit. Open." Carlos spoons another meatball up for Cecil. 

When the soup is gone, he goes to find his phone, in the pocket of his lab coat, still on the hook of the rack by the door. He snaps a picture of Cecil, smiling and sleepy-looking, and proud in his collar, and he puts his phone in Cecil's hands.

"Don't you look good?" He reaches over, to stroke over Cecil's hair, and to touch the soft suede of his collar. "I think so. It suits you. Handsome man like you, you look good in jewel tones."

"I do, don't I?" Cecil smiles. 

"A little bit of silver." Carlos nods. "Is it all right if I keep this picture?"

Cecil nods and Carlos leans forward to kiss his brow again, before pulling Cecil close instead, shifting him into a waiting lap. "If you change your mind later, I'll delete it. But thank you for letting me keep it at least for now. I like how it looks on you. My sweet baby. Cielito..."

"Will... will you send it to me? So... when I'm not wearing it, if I need a reminder, I can look?"

"Of course." Carlos promises, and does just that, and would do so much more for the smile Cecil gives him.

Cecil falls asleep in his lap, and for a while, Carlos doesn't move him, doesn't wake him. It's comfortable enough... and after all, Cecil is all his. His lap is a good place.


End file.
